The Drum Beat 556 – Entertainment-Education
August 23 2010
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- The THEORY behind E-E.
- Focus on: SOAP OPERAS.
- SPOTLIGHT on a new E-E project in Colombia.
- Strategies for reaching NICHE populations.
- Where to find MORE E-E-related information.
- EVALUATIONS OF E-E campaigns and tools.
This issue of The Drum Beat explores entertainment-education (also called «E-E», or «edutainment») – a strategy designed to maximise the reach and effectiveness of behaviour change messages through the combination of entertainment and education.
Below please find a selected few edutainment articles, reports, and studies included below. Please send us your own!drumbeat@comminit.com
1. Pop Culture with a Purpose! Using Edutainment Media for Social Change
by Virginia Lacayo and Arvind Singhal
This Oxfam Novib December 2008 paper discusses basic E-E concepts and strategies, including: using edutainment to build and strengthen social movements; the common challenges of planning and evaluating edutainment; and the main theories supporting its practices and strategies. The authors use several examples of projects, including: Breakthrough in India, Soul City and Soul Buddyz in South Africa, and Sexto Sentido from Puntos de Encuentro in Nicaragua.
by Tefese Refera
This thesis from November 2004 analyses the advantages and disadvantages of Sabido method drama, based on case studies from Ethiopia, as well as the tasks that need to be considered for this type of drama to be effective in HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives. The paper summarises the qualitative and quantitative assessments conducted to evaluate the impact of two radio serial dramas, «Yeken Kignit» and «Dhimbiba», both produced in Ethiopia with the support of the Population Media Center.
See also:
by Arvind Singhal, Karen Greiner, and Sarah Hurlburt
A 2006 report documenting the results of an assessment exercise that involved participatory sketching and participatory photography in Sudan to gauge how avid listeners of Ashreat Al Amal («Sails of Hope») derived personal meaning from its plot, characters, and educational messages. Listeners emphasised that they learned about, or were reinforced in, the importance of: abandoning female circumcision, giving girls more control of their reproductive health, having a small family, and staying away from drugs and alcohol.
4. TV Soap Operas in HIV Education: Reaching Out with Popular Entertainment
by Stuart Adams
An April 2009 report from the German HIV Peer Review Group (PRG) that discusses soap operas as vehicles for HIV/AIDS education, offering case studies of 3 examples – «Love as a Test» in Kyrgyzstan; «Amor de Batey» in Dominican Republic; and «SIDA dans la Cité» in Côte d’Ivoire. The report provides lessons learned from these soap operas’ production and broadcast, such as: make it professional; make it local and realistic; take care in developing supplementary material; anticipate the need to evaluate impacts; and sustain the effort.
5. Entertainment-Education and Rice Pest Management: A Radio Soap Opera in Vietnam
by K.L. Heong, M.M. Escalada, N.H. Huan, V.H. Ky Ba, P.V. Quynh, L.V. Thiet, and H.V. Chien
A 2008 report on the radio soap opera «Chuyen Que Minh» (or Homeland Story) that explores the E-E approach as a platform for rapidly reaching millions of farmers in Vinh Long province, Vietnam, with natural resource manangement (NRM) information. The evaluators cite data to support the claim that the soap opera contributed towards creating favourable attitudes and changing practices related to managing pests, fertilisers, and seeds…
6. Entertainment-Education and Possibilities for Second-Order Social Change
by Arvind Singhal, Nagesh Rao, and Saumya Pant
Published in the Journal of Creative Communications (Vol. 1, No. 3), this article explores the transformative effects that the E-E radio soap opera Taru has ostensibly had among listeners in Bihar, India. The authors of the 2006 article argue that – while most social change projects achieve «first-order change» (change within a system which itself remains unchanged) – Taru’s 52 episodes and its spin-off initiatives seem to have engendered «second-order changes», presenting, as it were, a new alternative for social action by spurring fundamental, sustainable shifts in people’s values and beliefs.
by Nicholas Scott Burton
A May 2008 Master’s thesis that looks at quantitative data to determine if 2 Ethiopian radio dramas, Dhimbiba and Yeken Kignit, which addressed reproductive health and spousal abuse, caused: a change in reported beliefs; a difference in reported beliefs between listeners and non-listeners; and a difference in reported beliefs between male and female listeners.
Colombia Edutainment Initiative
This is a Colombian multi-media E-E and social mobilisation project focused on reaching adolescents and youth 12-19 years of age – with and emphasis on the 15-19 age group, and addressing sexual and reproductive health, adolescent pregnancy, gender-based violence, and respect for sexual diversity. Strategies will include: broadcast of an E-E television drama, participatory theatre, community radio magazines and debates, media advocacy, community dialogue, and social mobilisation.
by Tonya Graham
An April 2006 paper published in Exchange on HIV/AIDS, Sexuality and Gender, Issue No. 4, that shares Community Media for Development (CMFD) Productions’ experiences of producing 2 multidisciplinary E-E communication projects in South Africa – «Coming Out Again» and «Outside the Lines» – which both aimed to raise awareness and discussion around lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, health, and HIV/AIDS.
A January 2008 publication exploring the thinking behind the behaviour change communication (BCC) activities comprising one component of Avahan, an HIV prevention programme in which interpersonal communication is complemented by events including street plays, supplemented with kiosks where truckers can play games that reinforce select themes. Apart from a mix of street plays, game shows, and film shows held every day across locations, the programme conducts large-scale edutainment events at each of these locations every quarter.
by Gerrit Maritz
From April 2004, this paper describes theatre-in-education in the South African mining sector as «poor» theatre. «It is not implemented with all the traditional spectacular costumes, sets and stage decorations as is customary with western theatre.» However, it is «rich in creativity and commitment from the educators that implement it. New stages are created for performance, the most novel being the ‘crush’, which is the area where the miners assemble before descending the mineshaft to work in the underground tunnels…»
Please consult the following for MORE edutainment information:
Theme Site:
Archived issues of The Soul Beat:
- The Soul Beat 148 – Soaps for Social Change
- The Soul Beat 29 – Edutainment and EE4
- The Soul Beat 18 – Edutainment
Two of The CI Partners:
12. Soul Buddyz – Tomorrow Is Ours: Evaluation Report
An August 2008 report that presents an independent evaluation of Soul Buddyz, a multi-media edutainment intervention designed for children aged 8 to 14 in South Africa. Soul Buddyz was found to be successful in achieving its primary intended outcome most relevant to HIV and AIDS, which was decreasing the stigma related to the disease and increasing knowledge of basic facts. Detailed findings are included in this report.
by Irela Solórzano, Amy Bank, Rodolfo Peña, Henry Espinoza, Mary Ellsberg, and Julie Pulerwitz
A June 2008 paper evaluating Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales (SDSI), a communication for social change initiative that aims to prevent future HIV infections in Nicaragua by means of mass communication actions, including E-E programmes, local capacity building, and the development of links, coordination, and alliances within communities. The purpose of the evaluation was to explore the intervention’s impact on a representative group of young people, on collective processes, and on the local environment.
14. Computer Mediated Communication as a Means Of Assessing Entertainment Education in Africa
by Debra Buenting
A May 2003 case study whose author acknowledges that «EE campaigns usually take a multi-media approach, often centered on radio, television or film projects, and supported by other communication channels such as community theatre print and small group interaction.» But she argues that E-E campaigns have been slow to adopt computer-mediated communication (CMC) as a viable message delivery system or as an evaluation channel – probably due to the lag in computer and internet access in countries where most E-E projects are focused…
by William Powers
This 2010 paper explores the entertainment-education strategies undertaken by Radio Atipiri, a fully Aymaran-run radio station, in El Alto, Bolivia. The paper seeks to provide a window into the way radio drama is reducing HIV/AIDS prevalence rates, delaying pregnancy among teens, and getting more people treated in clinics. The power of the «invisibility» of the radio is cited here as being strategically crucial. That is, the issues are «displaced to the third person, where they can still be felt emotionally, but with enough distance to make them safe to discuss. Radio is also able to stimulate, through the single sense of sound, all five senses, increasing impact.
16. Evaluation of Breakthrough’s ICED! Video Game
by James Diamond and Cornelia Brunner
This report is an evaluation of a video game called ICED! (I Can End Deportation), which the human rights organisation Breakthrough developed in an effort to educate a wide audience about United States immigration laws and practices and deportation policies. The report presents both detailed findings and specific recommendations focused on video gaming strategies.
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This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Deborah Heimann.
The Drum Beat is the email and web network of The Communication Initiative Partnership – ANDI, BBC World Service Trust, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Calandria, CFSC Consortium, CIDA, DFID, FAO, Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Ford Foundation,Healthlink Worldwide, Inter-American Development Bank, International Institute for Communication and Development, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, MISA, PAHO, The Panos Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation,SAfAIDS, Sesame Workshop, Soul City, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, USAID, WHO, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
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The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.
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